It happened on a Tuesday.
Not a significant day. Not chosen for ceremony or timing or because anyone had decided it was the right moment. It happened because it was a clear morning and the private grounds were empty and Aelara walked out into them after breakfast and stood in the early light and felt something that had been waiting for a very long time say: now.
She had not planned it.
She stood in the grounds and felt the morning on her face and felt Nyxara the way she always felt her, the white-silver presence that lived in the place behind her sternum, always there, always patient, never demanding, and the difference this morning was that when she felt her she did not automatically hold her back.
She just stopped holding.
---
Vaelor was at the window of the workspace when he saw it begin.
